I recently came across a statement in a book that I am reading by J. C. Ryle that gripped my heart. Ryle noted–mind you, years before the turn of the 19th century–that he lived “in an age of reading.” What most forcefully commanded my attention was […]
Gregory Nazianzen said of Athanasius that he was both a lodestone and an adamant: a lodestone for the sweetness of his disposition, and an adamant for the invincibleness of his resolution. When the emperor Valens promised Basil great preference if he would subscribe to the Arian […]
When you have tasted the goodness of God, you will esteem God above all earthly things, preferring celestial before sublunary sweetness. All will be counted dirt and dung to Christ, or as some render it, dog’s meat to Christ (Phil 3:8), that is, coarse and contemptible […]
Were phylacteries in use among Christians, I would recommend this Scripture to be bound about your necks, or written upon the table of your hearts. This is a Scripture whereon we may well say Amen to Augustine’s Confessions: “O, the wonderful depth, my God, the wonderful […]
It is true, indeed, that Christ is perfectly and completely applied to the soul in the first act for righteousness. “Justification being a relative change, properly admits no degrees, but is perfected together, and at once, in one only act; though as to its manifestation, sense, […]